110 Foreign words occurring in the Qordn. [No. 2. 



meaning which it has in Arabic — road — in almost every European 

 language, in English we have street, in Dutch straat, German 

 strasse, Italian strada, &c. The omission of the first t will not 

 surprise those who are acquainted with the genius of the Arabic 

 language. It has a tendency to make words tri-consonantal as I have 

 shown at some length in my paper on the Physiology of the Arabic 

 language. Nor does the orthography militate against the opinion of 

 Soyuty, though De Sacy says the u° and h are never used in writing 

 foreign words. De Sacy is wrong. Comes is spelt U***, Csesar is spelt 

 j^aji ? Stephanus is spelt ^)\hk^\ y o-tvttziov is spelt &xh^ } Aristotle is 

 spelt j&»*j. There can therefore be no doubt but Sirat is a Latin word. 

 But what may have been the reason for using a foreign word for express- 

 ing an idea for which the Arabic language had several terms ? — Sira£ 

 has always a mystical sense in the Qoran, meaning religion, road to 

 heaven, and it is likely that the same word was used by the Christians 

 of Syria for expressing this idea. 



I have an Arabic Manuscript entitled &ij*+)\ JcliJill ^9 &j^«/o &)L»j by 

 Soyuty containing a list of the foreign words which occur in the Qoran. 

 This list is also in the 38th chapter of his Itqdn fy 'olum alqordn 

 by the same author which is being edited. It contains most of the 

 words which the Arabs themselves consider of foreign origin, and only 

 so far Soyrity's opinion can be of value, for his derivations from other 

 tongues which neither he knew nor those whose authority he quotes, 

 are very unsatisfactory. I did not think proper to swell this article by 

 an attempt to supply this defect, but leave these investigations to 

 others. 

 <J^ty abaryq Surah 56, 18. Persian, the paasage of water, a channel, 



an ewer. 

 v l abb, Surah 80, 31. Grass. 



^xljf abla'y 11, 46. Hebrew or Abyssinian, to absorb. 

 <i!^l akhlad 7, 175. Hebrew, to rest upon. 

 •sJjIjSII arayik 83, 23. Abyssinian, couches. 

 Jslxw^/I asba£, passim. Hebr. tribes. 



(3^1*.! istabraq 76, 21. 55, 54. 18, 30. 44, 53. Pers. coarse brocade. 

 j&<*\ asfar, passim. Syriac and Nabatean (i. e. Chaldean), books. 

 j*c\ \qr 3, 75. Nabatean (i. e. Chaldean), compact. 



